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Lambert Wiesing, The Philosophy of Perception: Phenomenology and Image Theory, Nancy Ann Roth (tr.), Bloomsbury, 2014, 166pp., $120.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781780937595.
Reviewed by Nico Orlandi, University of California, Santa Cruz
Looking at the history of analytic philosophy of perception we can easily find two recurring issues. One is the investigation of the objects of perception -- for example, whether they are ordinary objects or sense data. The other is the investigation of what the subject needs to do in order to perceive. In this book, Lambert Wiesing proposes that we switch paradigms. Rather than focusing on the object or on the subject of perception (or on both), we should focus on perception itself and on its significance for perceivers. Wiesing understands perception as a "mental state or experience" in which subjects take "a particular, describable object to be present and extant" (p. 76). Given this. . .